Execution has been a common punishment throughout the world since the Middle Ages, and was inflicted for a large number of crimes including petty offenses involving property. In England, during the 18th century, death was the punishment for several hundred specific offenses. Most death sentences also involved torture, such as burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, and slow strangulation.

Such severe punishment and torture began to die out in the 18th century when a democratic political philosophy and humanitarian movement grew in strength. The number of offenses punishable by death was reduced in all leading countries. Also, penalties involving torture disappeared with the idea that punishment and death should be swift and humane, whether by guillotine, hanging, the garotte, or the headman's axe.

A trend also began to develop in which life imprisonment was a suitable alternative punishment to death.

Burning at the Stake

Burning at the stake was a popular death sentence and means of torture, used mostly for heretics, witches, and suspicious women. Burning dates back to the Christian era, where, in 643, an edict declared it illegal to burn witches.

However, the increased persecution of witches throughout the centuries resulted in millions of women being burned at the stake. The first major witch-hunt occurred in Switzerland in 1427. Throughout the 1500 and 1600's, witch trials became common throughout Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and Spain during the Inquisition.

Soon after, witch trials began to decline in parts of Europe, and in England the death penalty for witches was abolished. The last legal execution by burning at the stake came with the end of the Spanish Inquisition in 1834.

The Wheel

The wheel as a method of torture and execution could be used in a number of ways. A person could be attached to the outer rim of the wheel and then rolled over sharp spikes, or down a hill, to their death.

Also, the wheel could be laid on its side, like a turntable, with the person tied to it. The wheel would turn, and people would take turns beating the victim with iron bars, breaking bones and eventually causing death.

This method was used throughout Europe, especially during the Middle Ages.

Guillotine

The guillotine became a popular form of execution in France in 1789, when Dr. Joseph Guillotin proposed that all criminals be executed by the same method and that torture should be kept to a minimum. Decapitation was thought to be the least painful and most humane method of execution at the time.

Guillotin suggested that a decapitation machine be built, which was subsequently named after him. The machine was first tested on sheep and calves, and then on human corpses. Finally, after many improvements and trials, the blade was perfected, and the first execution by guillotine took place in 1792. It was widely used during the French Revolution, where many of the executions were held publicly outside the prison of Versailles.

The last public execution by guillotine was held in France, in June 1939. The last official use came in 1977 in France, and the device has not officially been used since.

Hanging and the Garotte

Hanging was a popular way of both executing and torturing a person, with many devices available to aid in the procedure. The prisoner could simply be hanged with a noose, fracturing the neck. However, if torture was to be inflicted, many methods were available. Often, a person would be drawn and quartered before being hanged. For extremely serious crimes such as high treason, hanging alone was not enough. Therefore, a prisoner would be carved into pieces while still alive before being hanged.

The Garotte was also a popular method of torture, and similar to hanging. A mechanical device such as a rack or a gag would be tightened around the person's neck, causing slow strangulation, stretching, and obstruction of blood vessels. A device could also be placed in a prisoner's mouth and kept in place by tying and locking a chain around his or her neck.

Headman's Axe

This form of execution was quite popular in Germany and England during the 16th and 17th centuries, where decapitation was thought to be the most humane form of capital punishment. An executioner, usually hooded, would chop off the person's head with an axe or sword. The last beheading took place in 1747, and the axe used is on display at the Tower of London.

Today, with a greater interest in humanitarianism, capital punishment has become less gruesome than the beheadings and torture that were commonplace centuries before. Lethal injection, electrocution, and lethal gas have become the preferred methods of execution in the United States, mostly because these methods appear to be less offensive to the public, and more humane for the prisoner.

Unfortunately the article on methods of execution ismmisleading, or actually factually innacurate. 1) The wheel was widely used during the middle ages and baroque period, the last in France being in 1745 (?) when Carouche and his Gueps sufferedbthyat fate. Commoners were hoisted up the gallows aat Monfaucon, with separate areas for Christians, Jews, and Moslems. The French used two mnooses, set out at an angle, and pulling in opposite directions, theeby breaking he neck--a mixtuire of hanging and garotte. 2) The garotte has a more cloudy origin, being used in Ottoman Turkey before it was wirst used in Spain in 1814, It was last used in 1972. The last gartte execution under US jurisdiction was in Poerto Rico in 1906 0r 1907. 3) The guillotine was an adaptation of an older machine, the Scottish Maiden, and the Northumberlin Gibbit, as well as a German Fallbiel, used during medieval time. Although associated with the French Reign of Terror, far more Germans and others lost their heads under the Nazi Reime, under direction of herr Gr&#246;ppler, Hitler's Lord High Executioner. Most Concentration Camps had their Fallbiel installed, and over 1000 heads lolled nin Prague after the assassinjation of Rynhardt Heydrich in June 1942. More than 3000 people lost their heads a Berlin's Pl&#246;tzenzee Prison than the less than 2000 who were decapitated in France during the terror. ALthough rejected by New York State in the 1880s in favor of electrocution, the first users of lethal injection were the Nazi doctors in their T-4 "euthanasia" program. When Hitler asked Karl HBrandt what would be the mostn humane way to kill, Brandt suggested lethal gas (carbon monoxide) for mass murder, but T-4 took about 20,000 German Lives during the Nazi era. Injection was an alternate form of murder i the camps, under a medical illusion. Mengele used to swab the chest before inserting a large bore needle directly throuigh the chest wall and inject phenol, or used motor oil directly into the heart. One of his Goons, Klaer, was able to kill 20 people an hour that way, As best as can be asertained, lethal gas was used in Nevada; the attempt was to use carbon monoxide, and pipe it into the condemned man's cell while he slept; this was impossible, so they converted their barber shop into a primative gas chamber in 1924. Other states, except North Carolina, all bopiuightg heir gas chambers from Eaton, a firm in Salt Lake City, except North Carolina, which converted an old meat freezer in to their first gas chamber. It is not recognized that although the first gas executions were performed in North Carolina before those at San Quentin, both Central Prison in Raleigh and San Quentin -- 198 exeutions. Execution by firing squad dates from the 17th century, and on eof the earliest was that of Admiral Byng in 1757. Like all other methods, except perhaps the guillotine, it can be botched. The British developed hanging to a high degree, or excellence, but heads were occasiionally ripped off, or traps failoed to operate. It is not possible to adequately convey a hostory of capital punishment in a few lines on the internet. Ole_Grouch

I agree that executions should be televised.To the person who said that "Relatives of the condemed would pull on their legs to break the neck". first of all prove it!!! I find it very doubtfull that the persons carrying out the execution would let family memebers near the condemed person. They would obviously attemp to lift that person to prevent death. secondly often after any stangalation of any sort the brain should go into a dormant or euphoric state there for the person being involved may have little if any idea of what is happing. Also keep in mind that this person commited a severe crime against mankind.

I believe that countries that still use the gallows are doing themselves a service by doing away with these criminals in a judicial manner and sending a message to the criminal element. I don't think it would hurt to televise a couple of these hangings showing the mounting of the gallows, noose adjustment, hood, springing of the trapdoor and drop, the doctors pronouncement that the hanging is over.

In your comment on the Headman's Axe in England, you fail to mention that beheading was reserved for royalty and those of noble blood. Ordinary commoners were just hanged. Death used to be by strangulation, and the family of the prisoner being executed would hold onto and pull his legs to add more weight, so the person they loved could die more quickly. The use of a trapdoor in hanging, so the drop broke the prisoner's neck, is a relatively recent development. Also, when malefactors were hanged, drawn and quartered, the hanging was first. Only enough to hurt them, make them choke to the edge of unconciousness... The executioner made sure they remained alive for the suffering to come. Their entrails were drawn out of their abdomen while they were still alive and were burned before their eyes. (The body can take a long time to die if vital organs are left intact.) Finally, the victim was attached to four strong horses and pulled apart. The executioner might have to assist the tearing process by hacking at the hips and shoulders so the limbs could be pulled off. The end came when the head was removed from the body, and it would then by displayed on a spike atop the city wall as a warning to others. I'm now in my 50s, but I read about all this in a book about crime and punishment many years ago.